About a month ago, Carson had a little run in with a not so friendly neighborhood dog. We were walking home from the duck pond and we passed by a house on our street where a man was working in his yard with his dog. The dog walked out to the sidewalk and appeared to be friendly. Carson, of course, immediately wanted to pet the dog. I reminded Carson that we always ask before we touch someone's dog, and the man said, "your mom is right, you should always ask first, but he's the sweetest dog, he wouldn't hurt a fly." Famous last words!! Carson leans down to pet the dog (I think he was trying to give the dog a hug, because he laid his head down on the dog's back) and the dog whipped his head around and snapped Carson in the face. It happened so fast!. The guy was very apologetic and was very shaken up about it. I was actually really calm until I got home and called Shane to tell him what happened, then I started getting really upset. I felt so guilty and started realizing how bad that situation could have been. The wound wasn't very big, but it was deep and pretty open, so I decided to go ahead and take him to the ER to get it checked out.
The ER Dr. opted to put steri-strips on it instead of sutures to decrease the risk of infection. Apparently the saying, "A dog's mouth is cleaner that a human's" is just not true. Dog's mouth are extremely dirty and filled with tons of bacteria that I've never even heard of. They cleaned out the wound really well before putting on the steri-strips and sent him home on oral antibiotics. The Dr. said that even on the antibiotics there was a 50% chance it would get infected. And it did. By Tuesday morning he started having redness and swelling up around his eye.
It got more and more swollen and red throughout the day so I took him to his pediatrician to have it checked out and she said it looked infected and that he would need to go back to the hospital for IV antibiotics.
So Tuesday evening we headed back to Children's Legacy. I was really nervous about him getting the IV, and I didn't know who to ask for or who was a good stick up at Legacy. It was such a blessing though, because my friend Sunni (who was also my preceptor when I started working at Children's...she works at Legacy now) was working that day and she called the charge nurse from the ICU to come put in his IV...and she was fantastic!! They used a J-tip (which is pressurized lidocaine that numbs the skin and tissue) and she got the IV on her first try. He didn't feel a thing. I don't even think he realized what was going on, it went so smoothly!!
He actually slept all night and was in a really good mood the whole time we were there. I think it was like a little vacation for him. He was loving all the attention he was getting, and he got to play with some cool new toys.
And even got some balloons from DD.
After four doses of antibiotics his face was looking so much better. We were discharged Wed. afternoon. He was excited to get home and see his daddy and sissy.
So my lesson learned though all of this is that no matter what people say, just don't let your kids pet animals that you aren't familiar with. I am just so thankful that it was a small bite, because it really could have been so much worse!
